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I always found this funny.

40 thousand years into the future, in a world where technology borders with magic, one of the most popular ways to kill someone is running up to him and whacking him over a head with an axe/sword/hammer.

It's also strange how anything can actually get close enough to use melee weapons before being evaporated by superior firepower.

I understand that orks like melee combat because war is just a big party for them, but the Eldar, a dying race at the verge of extinction have whole squads devoted to melee combat (banshees).

Tau seem to be the most logical and efficient of all races, since they have no actual close combat non-sense. (Excluded alien allies)


But, yeah I get it. The fluff would be boring without heroic battles involving close combat.

What's your opinion on this?

Because many armies like Nids and Orks are almost without numbers, and tends to swarm their enemies. When dealing with such foes you need to be abel to figth in close combat. That and the fact that combat is rittualized, and battels can be won or lost with the outcome of a single duel between leaders or champions.

 Trondheim wrote:
Because many armies like Nids and Orks are almost without numbers, and tends to swarm their enemies. When dealing with such foes you need to be abel to figth in close combat. That and the fact that combat is rittualized, and battels can be won or lost with the outcome of a single duel between leaders or champions.

This, and also coupled with the fact that Power Armour can withstand a bolter/pistol shot. A clean swipe with power claws however...

Seems to be based on planets and the way offensives are planned a lot too. On Armageddon or Cadia, most of the time you will be fighting in urban terrain or trenches. Therefore its easier to use melee weapons to clear out enemy forces. Guns make such cramped and confusing conditions a whole lot worse. Off course this might not be too viable against Orks, but the main enemy of the Imperium still seems to be human rebels/Chaos rebels. Its not helped that the Lasgun isnt the SMG you might want for such actions, which leaves the regular guardsman with little more than his bayonet.

For the Space Marines it makes more sense than the IG. They drop down right in the middle of enemy resistance, like trenches or fortifications. Marines are not meant as a static force, they keep pushing forwards which means that you wil encounter an enemy that will hold its ground once in a while. Using melee weapons is much easier in such cases. A single lasgun round might not kill you inside a bunker, but a ricocheting bolt shell just might.

Off course that is coupled with the posts above.
On the part of Eldar Im a bit unsure, it might be that melee works better on Necrons and Deamons. Or it could be a cultural thing that they are unwilling to abandon, with the phoenix-lord and whole aspect warrior temple.

For me there's a great quote from Betrayer

After thirty thousand years, warfare had come full circle. The sheer scale of humanity's conflicts disregarded the corrupt reliance on automation as seen in the Dark Age of Technology. Mankind was back down to swords beating against shields and men entrenched with their rifles, where the gods of myth were titan war machines and baneblade tanks. In his calmer moments, Kharn felt honoured. He was living through a second age of legend.

Essentially the conflict in 40k is more mythological and epic rather then pragmatic and scientific. There are moments of "current day" thinking (using the navy to full effect, infiltrating explosives, information warfare etc...)

and when in doubt...rule of cool

Because it's sci-fi/fantasy, designed to entertain an audience.

If you read Betrayer Kharn has a section where he talks about this.

I'm sure there could also be some amounts of special/magical/high tech defensive devices to counter the fire power. Shields and all that type of stuff, maybe melee is the best option to get around some of that. Also, if you were a giant space marine with huge armor wouldnt you want to smash a smaller enemy with a giant hammer? I'm sure that would feel empowering and fun compared to shooting.

Because 3rd Edition wanted to sell you more models and make games shorter in duration.

40K is a space opera of future fantasy, not science fiction. If melee is so ridiculous for a way of settling differences 40,000 years into the future, why aren't soldiers with rifles just as stupid? One could argue that even tanks are borderline obsolete now; you expect them to roam battlefields in the distant future?

Orbital weapon platforms vaporizing ground targets just doesn't make for as interesting a game, I'm afraid.

 amanita wrote:
40K is a space opera of future fantasy, not science fiction. If melee is so ridiculous for a way of settling differences 40,000 years into the future, why aren't soldiers with rifles just as stupid? One could argue that even tanks are borderline obsolete now; you expect them to roam battlefields in the distant future?

Orbital weapon platforms vaporizing ground targets just doesn't make for as interesting a game, I'm afraid.

Sometimes you want the stuff on the ground, and vaporizing it from orbit doesn't really do that trick to well.


Ultimately, it's fairly difficult to track the progress of warfare forty thousand years into the future, because a measure will always be followed by a countermeasure, until you reach a measure which is too powerful to be practical.

We've already seen it with nuclear weapons. Technology raced ahead to the point where we figured out how to more or less erase a city from the map. Then we decided that we didn't want to just erase cities off,the map, so military technology reset back a bit, and resumed. And this is just in the last half century. The entire time, we've had the ability to erase cities, and chosen not to, for a variety of reasons.

However, there are certain things we know about the universe of 40K. They still use more or less conventional tactics. They do this because GW can't sell us toys without it. However, assigning some kind of fluffstification to that idea, we assume that it is because obliterating everything from orbit is generally not preferred as it means there is nothing left to win, or conquer, or exploit for natural resources. If there was no need to actually have planets, everybody would just wander around Exterminatusing everything. The reality is, somebody wants the planets. And it's good to have them in some kind of state where they are still useful as planets after the fact. to put people on. And to put people on planets owned by different people, you need your own people to take it away from them.

That given, we know the battlefield is full of weapons more or less analogous to modern day, just futurized. If 40K has Future Rifles, and Future Tanks, and Future Artillery, and Future Airplanes and Future Grenades and Future Bombs, then contextually Future Swords seem somewhat questionable to use, since it means crossing Future Open Space to get Future Shot At.

That's why melee combat is seen as "silly" by some people. Context.

Because it provides flavor, along with other unusual aspects like cathedral-crowned spaceships, church organ-shaped fire support vehicles, dudes wearing robes over their power armor, and an imperial war machine that despite thousands of years of time still has its most elite warriors fighting with sometimes irreplaceable technological relics.

That said, one could stretch some non-literary justifications:
- Combatants like space marines are capable of such superhuman maneuvers(or can use of jump packs, etc.) that tactics completely unfeasible for normal human armies become possible for them.
- The above, combined with extremely deadly melee weapons(force swords, power fists) provides an edge in sheer ability to eliminate a target(of course, there's nothing stopping someone in 40k from using a plasma gun or melta gun instead...).
- Melee-focused units serve as useful counter-assault elements against the likes of tyranids and orks, the former of which at least it makes more sense to be heavily melee focused in the first place.

I don't personally believe the above justifications are completely defensible, but they're enough to suspend disbelief(or maybe melee combat in 40k is just cool).

There isn't much of a logical reason for it. The reason is because of rule of cool/game balance reasons.

Non-fluff reason. Becouse when GW made it so you could not play cross over games between Warhammer and 40K, they forgot to leave behind the focus on CC. Shorter answer, 40K is a fantasy setting.

Because any soldier who goes to war without his sword is improperly dressed.

Because grimdark.

My theory has it that armor, numbers, tactics, first aid, and countermeasures 40,000 years in the future have made it so that a bullet or two aren't so entirely effective that it can put a warrior off the battlefield for good. It seems from the fluff that a guardsman hit in the heart can be put in an induced coma, brought back to a first aid station, have an artificial heart placed in, and be brought back from the brink of death, all within 15 minutes, and he/she will be pushed back into the heat of combat, just as effective as they were before losing their heart.

In real life, guns have much longer ranges and are much more powerful. In real life hitting a tank with a sword does nothing no matter how strong you are. Real life is not fun.

Also a heavy bolter equivelant weapon would kill 30 orks in a few seconds.

Because of Dune.

Because of Alien franchise.

Because of Starship Troopers.

Because of John Carter of Mars.

Because of Super-hero comics.

Because the Bayonet has survived countless attempts to get rid of it and people always end up proving they need it again.

Because Trench Warfare often comes down to melee combat.

If you spend alot of time fighting things trying to claw/hack you apart, why wouldn't you learn close combat drills.

Because, as others have said, the battlefield is not the same as it is today.

In Halo, for example, you are quite capable at charging around and pummelling many a foe to death. Your energy shields are not only capable of taking serious punishment, but also self-replenishment. Compare this to 'realistic' shooters, or even Halo on a much higher difficulty setting. You can't break cover under fire without dying. Melee is no longer viable. Your shields are no longer sufficient.

In modern combat, no soldier is capable of withstanding more than a couple of rounds, and is especially not capable of surviving against intense fire without cover. In 40k, various factors eliminate this - power armour, teleportation, innumerable and suicidal enemies that you will inevitably end up in close quarters with. As well as this, technology has made melee viable in the form of power weapons, sophisticated systems that are capable of ignoring most armour.

Another reason is efficiency. Bullets are very efficient, and do not do very much damage. They put small holes in just the right places to kill - which is perfectly deadly when you're fighting normal humans. Compare the damage done to a soft target with a bullet to a bladed weapon of any kind. It is not necessary to cleave a man in half to kill him. In real life, guns of any kind are deadly at extreme range (relative to melee) and even if they don't kill, a hit is almost guaranteed to incapacitate. Not true in 40k.

It is not that it's "fantasy sci-fi and it's to be interesting". Using the rules of the game, see how effective a unit of ten Guardsmen is at killing things in close quarters with chainswords out in the open with no cover. Now compare that to Assault Marines, suddenly leaping into a group and tearing them apart in seconds with lightning claws.

Guns are fine vs other humans, but when fighting Orks or Crons where they can take 10 times the damage a human can, you want to make sure it dies. Cutting/crushing/annihlating something with your own bare hands or weapon means you can.confirm the kill.

Khorne does it as a matter.of honour. Any cheesy backstabbing Slaaneshi asshat can shoot a guy in the head like abcoward,.or he can man up and put his life on the line in a (usually un-)fair fight. Eldar do it as a matter of tradition. Necrons do it for the same reason the Imperium does, they need to confirm the kill and the difference is that they are tough enough to break cover and fight. Orks cuz its fun. DE for the same reason Joker in Batman uses a knife. Guns are too quick and don't allow you o savour the emotion and pain.

Nids do it out of practicality and resources. Every bullet is a living creature. 1 firefight's worth of ammo can.go into making 10 new fighters to win the war. Plus, you don't have to worry about casualties because you have the numbers to keep going, and even casualties are literally recycled, all the while wasting enemy ammo reserves. And at the very end it means you closer to the dinner.

Tau don't do it because they are simply too weak physically to stand toe to toe with even humans.

Marines do it because they favour rapid assault and drop pod assaults, so when they end up 3 feet from the target, its simply more resourceful and practical to punch than shoot, particularly if he can measure up in CC (Ors, Nid Warriors, Assault Crons).

 Olly wrote:
For me there's a great quote from Betrayer

After thirty thousand years, warfare had come full circle. The sheer scale of humanity's conflicts disregarded the corrupt reliance on automation as seen in the Dark Age of Technology. Mankind was back down to swords beating against shields and men entrenched with their rifles, where the gods of myth were titan war machines and baneblade tanks. In his calmer moments, Kharn felt honoured. He was living through a second age of legend.

Essentially the conflict in 40k is more mythological and epic rather then pragmatic and scientific. There are moments of "current day" thinking (using the navy to full effect, infiltrating explosives, information warfare etc...)

and when in doubt...rule of cool

This. Hope I'll get to reading "Betrayer" soon, Kharn seems to be the guy who's always an inch from headbutting through the fourth wall.

Most battles in the 41st Millennium are probably boring firefights between two foes (IG vs Rebels) who are at such ranges they can't see each other most of the time. That sort of combat a good war game does not make. What we play are the most spectacular engagements where heroes are born, mettle is tested and exotic warriors come to blows.

Or maybe it's because it's cool.

It's just the flavor of the universe.

It makes more sense to keep it than people say, however. It makes sense if you're in confined spaces, we don't see more melee currently because we don't fight on a scale to warrant it. If we fought on a higher scale, with increased mobility, we'd be into hand to hand distance fairly often.

Now, it would not make sense in a place with open fields unless the foe loved close combat(monsters with claws that act as fodder, things that are just too dumb to understand the advantages of range or too poor a shot).

Against those foes, or in situations of jungle, true city, or shipboard fighting, you'd see a utility in melee if you were able to close the distance without dying. Also, if you look at insertion methods. if you are able to insert into a close distance it is very disorienting to suddenly have enemies in the middle of your line, or squad, or anything else.

In short, beyond the "it's the game", it can make sense, it's plausible. It's not fact, it's fiction. Science fiction makes best guesses, and 40k is a mix of science and fantasy fiction(aspects just don't have as much scientific backing as much of modern sci-fi does). Close combat is not something relegated to fantasy, however, as another person claimed. It shows in numerous sci-fi settings, including well researched ones.

tgjensen wrote:

This is hilarious! but I still think I laughed too hard at this for too long.

The truth is though, when you consider the universe, most warfare is at range.

With the exception of the Orks, Tyranids and some kinds of Marines (Black Templars, Khornate, Emperor's Children, Blood Angels), and the aforementioned Eldar Aspects, and their Fallen equivalent, most people shoot each other.

Only those with some inherent advantage in lethality can fight in melee as their primary means; Orks are hard to kill, fight in large numbers, are individually very strong, and don't take the whole war business all that seriously, Tyranids are numberless, but still use large amounts of ranged firepower, Marines have power armour, which while not much on the tabletop these days, in-setting, it is extremely durable. A marine can wade through enormous firepower to kill things in close combat, and as has been said by others, a sword or other close combat weapon is extremely lethal, moreso than a ranged weapon in many cases, it just needs to be able to get close, power armour and other technological devices allow this.

To use a historical analogy, during the Satsuma Rebellion in Japan in 1871, the rebelling Samurai of the aforementioned region managed to inflict enormous casualties on the advanced Imperial Army by use of terrain, allowing them to close without overt exposure to cannon and rifle fire; each swordsman can kill several times his number of ranged combatants if he can close. By use of terrain and advanced technologies, Marines of both Loyalist and Traitor variety can use their super-human abilities to their fullest extent in close combat, but even then, most marines spend more time using their boltguns than a chainsword.

For the Eldar, the Aspect system means their two close-combat specialists, Banshees and Scorpions, are a support and shock centric force. Scorpions are there to go after deadly ranged combatants, strike from the shadows, eliminate those who can not defend themselves and withdraw. The bulk of Eldar armies still rely on their advanced firearms to do the heavily lifting, with Banshees and Scorpions merely acting where they can open an advantage.

Most of the fluff in 40k is focused on ranged warfare, it's more a nature of the artwork and tabletop which accentuates close-combat, being heroic and mighty and epic and so forth. Truth be told, the only force that really bothers me is Black Templars when it comes to close combat; by rights, their own limited approach to fighting should see them beaten more often, as they basically do just charge at the enemy relying on their armour to protect them. Blood Angels at least make use of jump and other more mobile forces to close the gap quickly, and still make good use of tanks, aircraft and other ranged forces, Orks and Nids have numbers, Eldar have Eldar shenanigans, Templars just kind of run around on righteous fury.

Because swords don't need reloading

I think part of the issue is confusing what is prevalent in the 40K game with what is prevalent in the 40K universe.

Unless you play BFG, you don't play games with space ships shooting at each other at massive distances. Unless you play Epic you don't use much in the way of Titans. But the Imperial Navy and the Titan Legions are important, significant parts of warfare in the 40K universe.

Long range bombing, orbital bombardments, prolonged shelling, and the like all occur in the universe, and in the novels, but aren't the focus of the tabletop game or the novels. Why would they be?

What kind of novel would introduce two thousand individual characters, then wipe out 1995 of them in a bombing run? The novel would focus on the five who survived.

Who would want to play a game of Warhammer 40K where you set up three thousand Imperial Guardsmen two thousand feet away from enemy macrocannons and then removed most of them in several hours of sustained bombardment? The game focuses on the troops that survive to engage in close range combat.

Look at the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. More Tanith died in the first book than died in all the other books put together. All the Tanith that didn't get evacuated died on their home world. You can't argue that the few Ghosts that died in melee constitute the majority of the Tanith casualties.

Most of the deaths in 40K are long-range and impersonal, but being long-range and impersonal, means that they are not particularly a good focus for a novel or a tabletop game. In 40K, you are assumed to be 'playing out' a conflict where close range fighting makes sense (such as taking an objective, or securing a location). If it doesn't make any sense for your army to be fighting the enemy army on the tabletop, because they would just bomb them or something, then don't play the game if verisimilitude is that important.

Now, I can see valid questions about the very limited range of shooting weapons, but I think that that falls more under gameplay considerations. You could possibly create a version of the game where ranged weapons had more 'realistic' ranges, but given the constraints of a d6 based armor save system, no hit locations, and very rudimentary line of sight rules, I think it would tip the balance too much. If you had realistic ranges, but also had a way for, say, power armor to shrug off small arms fire as it seems to do in the novels, and rules for ammo capacity, and rules for taking cover, then you might have something that would work, but it would be much more complex than 40k.